1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile communication system and, in particular, to a method for inventory management of items inside a refrigerator, which allows a person to monitor the items with a mobile terminal even from outside of the residence in real time through a mobile communication network.
2. Background of the Related Art
A refrigerator is an electrical appliance that helps preserve food stored in a storage space by circulating coolant gas. Recently manufactured refrigerators are equipped with various functions in addition to the typical refrigeration and cooling, so as to be able to input data, display temperature inside the cooling and freezing compartments, and even access to the Internet.
Particularly, refrigerators may be provided with a built-in LCD display such that the information on the temperatures of the freezing and cooling compartments and the states of the items may be monitored and/or recorded. In this case, it is required to write or input the purchases and expiration date information in order to manage the inventory and expiration dates of the items. Recently, a radio frequency identification techniques (RFID) in which an RF tag is used, was disclosed to avoid the time-consuming and inconvenient input manipulation of the conventional refrigerator. In the RF tag based management method, the RF tag is attached to the items to be stored in the refrigerator. The RF tag is designed to contain information associated with the corresponding item. The RF tag broadcasts the associated information when a signal of a predetermined frequency is detected. The RF tag scanner is designed to radiate the frequency so that the information transmitted from the RF tag may be collected. In the meantime, a data input technique for refrigerators in which the purchase information is input through wire/wireless internet for simplifying the manual input process.
However, even though these conventional techniques are related to the efficiency of inputting the information of the items contained in the refrigerator, they provided limited efficiency and do not support enabling the user managing the items in real-time by monitoring the items especially at a remote place.